Russian Empire

The Russian Empire was a state that existed from 1721 to 1917, ruling over lands on three continents: Europe, Asia, and North America. The empire, ruled by the House of Romanov throughout its existence, was centered at the cities of Moscow and St. Petersburg in Russia in Eastern Europe, and it would expand into the Baltics and Eastern Europe in the 18th century and into Central Asia during the 19th century. Russia quickly overtook the Ottoman Empire as the dominant power in Eastern Europe, leading to the Crimean War with the United Kingdom and France in the 1850s and the "Great Game" competition with the British in Afghanistan. Russia was infamous for its pogroms against Jews and its mistreatment of its serfs, and in 1917 the Russian Empire was overthrown in the February Revolution, leading to the peasants taking power as the "Soviet Union".